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FCC loses Comcast's court challenge, a major setback for agency on Internet policies
Comcast on Tuesday won its federal lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission in a ruling that undermines the agency's ability to regulate Internet service providers just as it unrolls a sweeping broadband agenda.

http://voices.washingtonpost.c...ll.html?hpid=topnews
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I am thrilled that the governmment doesn't control the internet. I am disappointed that Comcast would restrict a website. I'd much prefer that comcast not have a monopoly in Florence for wired cable and internet service. If the governments (plural) would leave things alone we'd be able to choose an internet provider that we wanted at a much lower price because of competition.
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Originally posted by dolemitejb:
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Your Internet service providers controls what you see and do and a high price to use the internet.


So you want the government to do it instead?


What I would like is for the government to make sure that the playing field is level for everyone to get a proper chance to compete.

Lets say that you come up with a new search engine to compete with Google. Without net neutrality any ISP can say, You are unproven so we will not serve you to our customers unless you pay us $100,000. Your servers are still in your garage, so you are basically out of business.

Or lets say you are established, like Vonage. at&t and comcast can choose not to connect people to your service because it competes with their service, or they can make the connection so flaky and unreliable that people think your service is awful in order to sell you on their service. Heck, there's nothing stopping any of them from saying that they could tier websites like they do cable service. Heard about some new video website? Yes we can connect you, if you sign up for the gold package.
Net Neutrality has some good points, like not allowing ISP's to block content or throttle certain protocols (like bittorrent). But, on the other side, there are people who want to use it as a sort of equalizer -- a "fairness doctrine" for the Internet. I don't agree with the latter.

I want my ISP to be a dumb pipe. I don't want it throttling, advertising to me, or blocking video content from rivals (such as Netflix or Hulu). Make no mistake about it, Comcast and the other big ISP's want to block content from rivals. This is why Comcast spent over $9 million lobbying Congress about this issue. They have plenty of bandwidth -- it's not about bandwidth. They want to make sure you don't cancel your TV account, and the way they do that is by throttling Netflix and other video rivals. They wont just come out and block such sites, but rather they will charge extra for it and claim it's a "load on the system" and you need to pay a premium for it. Their ultimate goal is "billing by the byte," which means basically they want to implement a cell phone billing plan (you pay by the minute on cell phones and you pay by the gigabyte with ISP's). Both plans are big rip-offs (cell phone billing practices should have been outlawed years ago -- it's highway robbery).

I am not a leftist at all, but I also don't trust monopolies. The American broadband system is screwed up because of all the sweetheart deals these massive telcos/cable companies have gotten over the decades which give them virtual monopolies in most markets. What we need is more competition -- this would solve every problem, including the sky-rocketing costs. In Japan you can get a 100Mbps connection for $30 a month. Here in Florence, an 8Mbps Comcast connection is $70.

Also keep in mind that the RIAA/MPAA (aka the MAFIAA) is lobbying Congress to pass laws which dictate that ISP's must police their networks for pirates. This will do a couple of things: 1)hurt privacy 2) slow everyone down and 3) increase rates.

There are some huge Internet issues that will continue to get bigger and bigger as the years go by. It will get interesting as all sides scramble to make their case. I suspect the court case between Comcast and the FCC will be only one of many when it comes to these issues. I suspect we will even see a Supreme Court case or two.
I think the big mistakes most conservatives make is they think NN is some Liberbal agenda, and it's not at all. It will guarantee that the greedy corporate pigs can't tell us what we can do with our internet connection. For once it's a law that protects our freedom, rather than limit it like all the ISPs would like to do.

Clover is dead on with his post. It's very scary right now that there is nothing stopping these guys from doing what they want to our internet connections. Comcast advertised an unlimited plan, but the truth to that is that by unlimited they mean 250GB a month. That's not unlimited. With streaming video and other downloads getting larger, it will not take but a few years for an average consumer to consume more than that on average. As more content goes HD and we use the internet for more things. This cap is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. You tell me I can download 8Mb/s, but tell me I can only download so much with it. That's like super sizing my drink, then telling me I can only put 16oz. of cola in my supersized cup. Make no mistake about it, they have already began limiting our rights as consumers, and for once it's the government trying to protect them and not take them away.

Parker Griffith just takes the usual right wing stance on Net Neutrality. I've sent him several letters about it and all I get back is the crap about a free market space for the corporate pigs. He's all for giving rights to the billion dollar companies, but not protecting those of the people he represents. I would urge everyone to send him a letter today or an email even if you haven't supporting Net Neutrality. Otherwise in the not to distant future you may see things like this when you go to shop for an internet provider.

http://boingboing.net/2007/09/...-nonneutral-isp.html

Hmmm Look familiar???? Kinda reminds you of those cable TV packages we all so know and love. Without NN, it's just a matter of time before we start seeing this from all the ISPs.

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